


You and I

by colormyheartred



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colormyheartred/pseuds/colormyheartred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>lieutenant duckling modern au, Emma's 17 and living in a small town with a crappy foster family and can't wait to get out and go to college. While 19 year old Lieutenant Jones comes home from the war after being injured during battle. Despite their differences the two quickly form friendship over how desperately they want to escape the confines of their home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I

She meets him on a Thursday.

It changes her life, seeing the dark brown head of hair and those sharp blue eyes.

She’s lived in Storybrooke for just a few weeks now, but she has been determined to make the best of such a shitty situation.

Her foster parents are _kind of_ the worst. They could care less about whether or not she gets fed or if she goes to school, and Emma has made up her mind that this life is one she wants to crawl out of, no matter how difficult it ends up being.

She doesn’t have her own bedroom, of course, and she never expected she would. She shares with two younger girls that whine and hit each other and stay up far too late for even her on school nights.

Emma keeps her head down in Storybrooke. She goes to school an hour early, does her homework, and works at Granny’s Diner until close. When she gets back _home_ , she doesn’t do anything but sleep, which is a good thing. She doesn’t like her foster family and they don’t like her. It’s always best if she stays out of argument, especially since she’s seventeen, which means she can leave soon.

Kids at school make fun of her for being so quiet and without any _real_ family, and she sometimes has to reel in her anger that boils under her skin like a fierce, dark magic.

She might not know who her parents are, might not be loved, might not have anything to call her own, but she is her own person, with feelings, and she hates it when people try to take that away from her.

She’s working when she sees him.

He walks into Granny’s with his hair a mess, his expression moderately frustrated, and slumps down in the first open booth.

Emma goes to him and pulls on a thin smile. “Hi. Welcome to Granny’s. Can I get you anything to drink?”

She studies him as he looks up at her. He looks frustrated still, and she doesn’t know what for, but his eyes are bluer than possible and his cheeks are filled with the softest stubble.

He’s handsome, and he’s around her age if she knows any better, though his eyes are filled with wisdom well past his years.

Emma swallows thickly when he juts his tongue out to wet his lips.

“Erm… just a water. I guess.”

She takes a breath through her nose and forces another smile, nodding at him. “Okay. Water. Be right back.”

It doesn’t take long for her to get the water, and when she sets it down on the table, he raises his eyebrows at her as he nods in thanks.

He doesn’t say anything and she ends up hesitating, wavering between going to another table and staying here.

“Need a little more time or…?”

He gives a swift shake of his head and lifts his right hand, taking the menu from the table and holding it out for her to take.

“A grilled cheese will be fine.”

His accent sends chills down her arms and she gets a little twist of excitement in her belly, which she quickly quells as she takes his menu and heads away from his table.

He’s curious, the boy with the wild hair and the years in his eyes.

Emma pins his order up at the kitchen window and finds Ruby waiting at the bar, staring over at the table Emma had just come from.

“Huh,” she says, raising her eyebrow. “Didn’t think he’d come back.”

Emma shakes her head. “Who is he?”

“Killian Jones,” Ruby says, lowering her voice a little, leaning in so she’s close to Emma. She folds her arms to her chest. “He went into the military right out of high school. He didn’t have anyone here, so…” Ruby shakes her head. “I guess he could use a friend.”

Ruby gives her a little look and Emma gapes at her coworker. “What? You want me to talk to him and find out what happened?”

Ruby shrugs. “I mean, if you _want_ to. I’d give you ten dollars.”

Emma watches Ruby pull the ten-dollar bill out from her jeans and sighs. _Any_ amount of money would be helpful right now.

The brunette smiles smugly when Emma relents, marching forward until she reaches the booth. She slides in across from Killian, who stares at her in confusion.

“I’m Emma,” she says as way of introduction.

He furrows his brow. “Is there something I’ve done wrong?”

Emma shakes her head. “No. I just wanted to keep you company. You seemed kind of… frustrated about something.”

He still does, even more so when he scrunches up his face.

“It’s really of no interest to you, darling, I assure you.”

She takes him in then, noticing that he keeps his left hand down, while his right rests on the table. His hair looks thoroughly run through with his fingers and his eyes are a touch bloodshot with lack of sleep. He wears a necklace around his neck, atop the dog tag, with an anchor medallion attached to it.

“Come on,” she says softly, reaching across the table to touch his hand.

He pulls back immediately, tucking his hand away. It irritates her, making her sigh as she drops her hands into her lap.

She looks away from him, down at the table, trying to come up with something to get him to talk to her, but he interrupts her before she can speak.

“You’re new here, aren’t you? You weren’t here a year ago.”

Emma looks up and nods. “Yeah.”

She becomes tense, because talking about when she came here brings up rather unpleasant memories of leaving her old foster home in trade for this one.

Killian narrows his eyes slightly as he reads her. He relaxes a little after a few beats and sits back in his seat.

“I was in the army,” he tells her quietly. “I was discharged because of a mistake I made…” He cringes, closing his eyes as he shakes his head. “The only reason I’m here now is because the psychologist knows me here and I didn’t know where else to turn.”

Emma opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up his left arm, revealing to her that he has a stump where his hand once was. It makes her heart sink, because he’s been through a _lot_ , and he’s only a few years older than her.

“I…” Killian shakes his head. “I lost my hand to an enemy in battle.” He looks tired and _old_ as she stares at him now. “So you can go tell Ruby that I won’t be here any longer than I have to. Doctor Hopper says I’ve been getting better. Might get to leave by the end of the year if I can demonstrate my improvement.”

Emma presses her lips together in a line. Part of her is interested in him, part of her can relate deeply to the loss she sees before her, but the other part of her knows it would be easiest to just get away from him.

They’re both lost in this world and she thinks that even if that brings them together, it should just as easily keep them apart.

..

He comes in again on Monday while she’s working, sits himself down in the same booth, and orders water and a grilled cheese with fries.

It becomes a routine that he casually explains as being part of his therapy. Being a functioning part of society implies that he does things, like interact with people and eat out, so… here he is.

Emma doesn’t talk to him like she did on the day she met him, but he awards her with a smile sometimes, a genuine one, however painful, and Emma smiles in kind.

He visits almost everyday after that Monday, around the same time, and after two weeks of bringing him a glass of water and a plate of grilled cheese, Emma finally says something.

“I’m trying to leave Storybrooke,” she tells him, sinking down into the booth across from him. “And since you are too, I guess, maybe… we could do it together.”

Killian stares at her in silence for a few moments. “Why do you want to leave?”

Considering Killian doesn’t have any reason to mock her, or to feel sorry for her, Emma only hesitates for a second or two.

“I’m a foster kid,” she states on a sigh. “I just want to get out of here, go to college, and start over. The family I’m with could care less about me so I don’t have any reason to stay either.”

He presses his finger against the rim of his plate and takes a deep breath. “If we’re going to leave here together, I suppose we should be properly introduced, aye?”

Emma shrugs. “I already told you my name.”

He nods. “Killian Jones,” he states, holding his hand out for her to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emma.”

“Swan,” she insists. “Emma Swan.”

It makes him smile, for the first time since she met him two weeks ago, his grin stretched fairly wide as he shows her his teeth. “Swan. It suits you.”

Emma smiles then too, a genuine one, and for once, she thinks that getting out of this hell hole won’t be as difficult as she’d thought.

..

Killian agrees to stay until she’s finished with her senior year, but in return, Emma has to promise she’ll continue to work hard.

Seeing him after school at the diner becomes the highlight of her day. They sit together when she isn’t busy with other customers and he tells her about his life.

He tells her about Liam, his older brother, how he’d been the one to go into the army before him, how he’d lost his life. Killian tells her about his dreams of becoming an artist and how he paints in his free time, his sketches on napkins and in his sketchbook living proof of that very fact.

In turn, she tells him about the parents that left her on the side of the freeway, the ones who gave her her last name, and the ones that passed her off like garbage. She tells him about friendships gone sour and about her hopes and dreams, of becoming a social worker one day to help kids that are in her position.

And it’s easy between them. They understand each other, having both lived their fair share of unfairness and heartache. She finds that she _trusts_ Killian, more than she’s ever trusted anyone, and she doesn’t have any reason to believe that he’ll ever betray her, so she allows herself to consider him her friend.

It’s a funny thing, actually having a _friend_. They make inside jokes about regular customers and play games sometimes when things are particularly slow.

Once or twice, he walks her back to her foster home and she stares at him under the sickly yellow glow of the street lamp, wondering just how lucky she got to find him. Its moments like these that she has a brief flicker of desire rushing through her veins, to creep up onto her toes and kiss him.

But she doesn’t. She can’t ruin what they have.

One day at the end of her shift, she finds him still sitting in his booth and comes up to it, tilting her head.

“Hey. I just got off.”

He nods, his smile a little nervous as he stands beside her. “Erm… I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to see where I live tonight. Maybe look at some of my art.”

Emma smiles. “Yeah. I would love that.”

“Yeah?” Killian breathes, reaching up to scratch behind his ear.

“Yeah.”

She can’t keep the smile from her lips as they head outside. It’s dark and cool with the coming of autumn, but she’s never felt warmer standing beside Killian.

He smiles over at her shyly. “I’ve told you before that I live near the water.”

Emma hums.

They walk for a short ways before Killian guides her into an apartment building that faces Storybrooke’s harbor.

It’s not the nicest of apartments, but it suits him, small, with just enough space for his things.

There’s a bed in the corner of the room that serves as his bedroom and studio, and a window that overlooks the water sits behind his easels of art. He flicks on the light and anxiously shows her the first painting she looks at.

“Uhm, this is the sunrise,” he tells her. “Sometimes I can’t sleep and instead I paint. I-“

Killian stops himself as he presses his hand over his stump and Emma gets a twisting in her belly, knowing exactly what it means.

“It’s beautiful,” she says honestly. She takes a step forward to study the meticulous strokes of his brush and finds herself lost in it.

He shows her more, feeling more comfortable, and Emma smiles as he shows her paintings he’s done of people from town, laughing at one he’d done of Leroy.

“Do you use references?” she asks. “Because these are all so detailed.”

Killian shakes his head. “No, I’ve got a fairly good memory.”

She sees pain in his eyes and it hurts her heart, knowing precisely all that he means when he says that. She knows the dreams he must have involve his missing hand and she hates that he can’t sleep because of _that_.

Emma smiles softly. “You’re really talented, Killian.”

“Thank you,” he says, his voice just above a whisper.

He’s staring at her and she feels her heart skip a beat when he inches forward, closer to her, so close that she can smell the musk of his cologne and see the warmth in his eyes. For a few seconds, she lives in the moment, wondering if he’ll kiss her, _finally._

Their relationship has blossomed since they first met. Whereas before she’d thought him someone she’d rather not be friends with, they’d found things to bond over, and she finds that she actually really likes spending time with him. He’s sweet and kind and he has stories to go for days bottled up in his head, not to mention that he’s unattainably good looking.

She’s standing in front of his nightstand and he steps in again, his arm extending as if to hold her arm, until he reaches around her, to either her disappointment or relief she isn’t sure, to grab a sketchbook.

He sits on his bed then and tilts his head to the side, smiling a little. “Care to join me, Swan?”

She does, exhaling a little, her fingers clenching into a small fist at her sides as she releases the pent up energy she’d felt between them moments before.

There are hundreds of sketches, she soon finds out, of all varieties. She’s seen him with this sketchbook before, sitting at the diner. Sometimes she’ll walk up and find him sketching something on the table, or a customer across the room, but he never allows her to see his work.

She knows it must be difficult to open up this much. It has been hard for her to as well, telling him all about her experiences in group homes and under foster parents.

When he flips past a certain point, she starts to see a trend in what his sketches are. At first, they’d been of ships and of a man with curly hair and a dimpled smile, “Liam,” Killian had said, but then they became darker and sadder, filled with loss and brokenness.

But then, in the middle of it all, he’d drawn a flower.

She smiles, pressing her chin onto his shoulder. “What kind of a flower is that?”

“It’s a buttercup,” he explains, running his finger along the edge of the page. “My mum loved them.”

She watches him as he stares at the page for a moment in silence, as if remembering something, and then he turns the page again.

It’s like looking into a mirror, staring at his sketch of her. Her heart stops and she finds that of all of the art of people that she’s seen from him, this is by far the one he’s taken the most care crafting.

It’s beautiful, how he worked with his pencil to get this image of her on his pad of paper.

When she finally looks up at him, he’s studying her. “I… I apologize. I should ask before-“

“No, it’s great,” she tells him seriously. “It’s beautiful. I- I’m honored that you’d draw me.”

She sees him swallow and he flits his tongue out to wet his lips. He rises to his feet and leaves her staring up at him from his bed when he puts the sketchbook down again.

Emma feels a little awkward, sitting there on his bed, looking around his bedroom, and Killian takes his hand into his hair.

She stands and moves across the room until she stands in front of him. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Killian.”

She steps forward to press a kiss to his cheek and when she falls back onto her heels, he finds her eyes.

“Do you… we can…”

Emma laughs at how flustered he is and he joins her a moment later. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

It takes him a few minutes, but he loosens up again, and things are comfortable once they take off their shoes and sit up on his bed together with a pint of ice cream between them.

She tells him about her day and he tells her stories from his childhood, when Liam would constantly try and get him to do ridiculous things.

They laugh and talk until midnight, and Killian pulls out his favorite book, which happens to be hers as well, so they lie down on his bed and he reads it aloud to her.

His voice is low and soothing enough that she falls asleep, her body turned toward his, her head resting on his pillow, and his scent in her nose.

..

She wakes to the sound of an unfamiliar ringing, her eyes shooting open, only to find that she lies facing Killian, whose back is turned to her as he fumbles with something on his nightstand.

It’s still relatively dark in the room, but she can make out his features when he turns back to her.

He looks a little tired, but more rested than she’s ever seen him before.

His smile is ridiculously sweet and he sighs through his nose. “Apologies for waking you, love, but I’ve got work down at the harbor.”

“Right,” she whispers, smiling back at him.

Killian searches her face and reaches in to brush back strands of her hair gone awry. For a moment, she thinks he’ll kiss her, but that idea falls away as quickly as it comes.

He stretches out on his barely large enough twin-sized bed and then he moves to get up, sitting first before he slings his legs down over the side.

His hair is adorably mussed and his clothes are wrinkled.

“I should go home then, huh?” Emma asks.

“If you’d like.” Killian teases, lifting an eyebrow insanely high.

Emma chuckles. “It would be for the best.”

She gets up after he stands, and she follows him to the front door of his little apartment after he helps her find her things.

Standing at the door, she looks up at Killian and smiles again.

“I’ll see you later, right? Grilled cheese and French fries?”

He cracks a grin, bouncing a bit on his feet. “Aye. Of course.”

As they stand there, she doesn’t know what to do, just stands there awkwardly, and Killian seems to be hesitant as well.

It’s obvious that last night has changed their dynamic. They’ve been friends for a few really great weeks now, but all of a sudden, Emma can’t help but think that she’d like _more_.

“Um…” Emma turns toward the hall and then back toward him when he speaks. “I… last night was good. I- I-“ He presses his lips together in a line. “Thank you for being so kind about my art.”

Emma shrugs. “Yeah. Of course. You’re really talented.”

He presses his hand against the side of the door and Emma can tell that he doesn’t want her to leave just yet, so she doesn’t.

“I… I uh… last night, I slept better than I have in years. So, thanks for that, I guess.” He laughs in spite of himself and Emma chuckles.

“Yeah. Me too, actually.”

He smiles at her as if he can’t believe she’s standing in front of him, and she knows it in her heart that even if things changed between them, they’d still be as driven to make their lives better, to leave here and not ever look back.

So, she steps forward, pressing her palm against his chest, taking her other and using it to tug him down by his hair, and presses her lips against his.

He takes his hand almost immediately from the door so he can cup her cheek. He kisses her sweetly, a little smile curling at his lips, and she feels like she’s flying even as she’s sinking back down onto her heels and he’s chasing her.

Emma licks her lips and smiles sheepishly at him before stepping back.

“I’ll see you later, Killian.”

He looks _wrecked_ , his cheeks pink and his eyes big. “Aye.”

..

Her foster dad yells at her for not coming home and it _breaks_ her.

She’d been floating on air when she snuck back into the house, only to find her foster dad sitting in the recliner in the living room, an almost empty bottle of Jack in his hand and a scowl on his lips.

He almost hit her, but her foster mom came into the room at just the right time, telling him to stop, otherwise they’d never get their money for taking care of her.

Emma goes into her bedroom feeling sick, tears welling up in her eyes. All she wants is to get away from here. She doesn’t want to see these people, to live in this dreary little town, to know she’s all by herself in a sea of faces at school.

She just wants to _live_.

Her tears stream down her cheeks and she breathes out shakily as she enters her shared bedroom, going straight for her dresser drawer and removing everything she has.

She stuffs it all in her backpack, ready to run like she always does. She doesn’t want to stay here if people won’t listen and appreciate her as much as Killian does.

Emma sneaks out through the window of the bedroom and doesn’t even give the room one last glimpse. She’s running away this time for good.

When she reaches the harbor, she finds Killian on the deck of his tourist ship, cleaning it all by himself.

He sees her and furrows his brow. Clearly, he can tell that something’s off.

Killian stops what he’s doing and comes down off of his ship to meet her on the dock. Tears are still in her eyes and she has a knot in her throat.

“Love, what is it? What’s happened?” His hand rests on her arm and she shakes her head.

“I can’t do this anymore. I- I can’t live with them.”

She closes her eyes and hot tears stream down her face. “He was drunk and he was going to hit me, and- and I’m done! I can’t-“

Killian takes her into his arms and she sobs into his shirt, wrapping her arms around him while he buries his face in her neck.

“It’ll be alright. We’ll figure something out.” He soothes. “I promise.”

..

Killian doesn’t break his promise. They formulate a plan to help her get through the rest of her senior year together and by the middle of October, it’s settled.

She goes to school during the day and then to work, where she and Killian get to see each other during dinnertime, and he walks her back to her foster parents’ place, where she proves to them that she’s back for the night by telling them as such and getting into bed for about an hour until her foster mom checks on them.

She leaves, after making her bed and awarding her roommates with candies to keep quiet, and meets Killian outside.

Then, they head back to his apartment and have ice cream and talk about their dream plan while they lie in bed together.

“I want to live near the water,” she tells him, snuggling as close as she can get. She presses her palm against his and their fingers tangle together.

He smiles sweetly at her. “You do, hm?”

“Yes,” Emma teases. “And since this is the dream plan, I want to have a beach house.”

Killian hums. “Very nice. What color?”

“White, or maybe a light blue.”

His smile is wide and infectious. “I imagine there’d be a door off of the master bedroom with windows that overlooked the sea.”

“And you can see the sunset from it.”

Emma searches his eyes and he moves in to kiss her softly, whispering afterward, “That sounds perfect.”

She likes the intimacy, of how close they are on the twin-sized mattress, and how warm he is as he wraps his arms around her and kisses her goodnight.

Sleep comes easily for them, wrapped up in one another, content in nothing more than the safety that it provides.

She has to wake early in order to get back into the house in time to appear like she’s just running out for the day, but it always works, because there are five kids living with her foster parents, not including her.

On weekends, such as this one, Emma tells her foster mother that she’s sleeping over at Ruby’s and has Ruby filled in just in case she needs backup.

On weekends, it’s always nice to get to sleep a little longer than normal, to wake up with the sun just barely streaming in through the window with Killian feeling equally as lazy alongside her.

Killian is missing when she wakes this particular morning, but he isn’t for long, entering the room just as she’s about to get up with his hair a complete train wreck and a plate in his hand.

“Happy birthday, Swan.” He beams.

She feels special in that moment, because no one ever remembers her _birthday,_ of all things, and Killian has made her breakfast in bed.

He sits up in bed beside her and they share the pancakes, but only after she tells him she doesn’t think she can eat _eight_ pancakes.

She feeds some to him with the fork and he hums, nodding. “That’s quite good.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

He chuckles and presses a slightly sticky kiss to her cheek.

When he smiles at her, she smiles back, because he’s made her feel like she’s worth something. Unlike anyone else ever has.

“Thank you.”

Killian nods. “Of course. But that’s not all you get on your birthday.”

Emma raises her eyebrows and sets the fork down on the empty plate. “Oh?”

Her former lieutenant shakes his head and kisses her chastely. “No. I’ll be right back. I put your present in the kitchen so you wouldn’t go looking for it.”

She gives him a look and he laughs, loud and happy, before heading away with the plate.

When he returns, he has a small rectangular package wrapped in duckling wrapping paper.

She smiles, tilting her head up to look at him. “You know you didn’t have to.”

“Come now,” he teases, pressing the gift into her hand. He drops down to sit on the bed, turning to face her eagerly. “Of course I did.”

Emma gives him a look, but he tips his head forward, motioning for her to open it with a gentle smile on his face.

She runs her fingers over the gift and laughs at the little note he wrote for her: For My Swan, with love from Killian.

After she finds the taped ends of the wrapping paper, she tenderly removes the wrapping paper from the gift, a slow smile spreading on her face when she discovers that it’s a new painting, of a little house on a beach.

Tears fill her eyes before she looks up at him with a lump in her throat. “It’s _beautiful_. Thank you.”

Killian leans forward to kiss her on her forehead. “I wish I could’ve given you more than this, but-“

Emma shakes her head. “I love it.” She moves so she can straddle his lap, taking her hands to cup his cheeks. “We can hang it in the beach house we’ll have.”

Her hands help drop his forehead to hers and she feels butterflies as he brushes his nose against hers.

“We?” he asks softly.

Emma nods against him. “Yes. We.”

And she kisses him, reveling in the way he tastes and the way he holds her. He makes it impossible to breathe and she feels like she’s flying all over again, shifting her hips against his.

“Swan-“ her name is caught in his throat when she kisses down his neck, and he doesn’t protest when she strips the oversized shirt he’d leant to her off, tossing it somewhere behind her.

He grins wolfishly up at her when she tells him exactly what she wants, it is her birthday after all, and she laughs when he flips her onto the bed, holding himself over her.

“These have been the very best months of my life, I’ll have you know.”  

Emma holds him to her when he kisses her cheek and neck, moving downward. “Mmm. Me too.”

He meets her lips for a sweet, lingering kiss. Her fingers press against his cheek and he rests his forehead against hers.

“Happy birthday, Emma.”

She takes a deep breath, delighting in this moment, being here with him. “Thank you, Killian. For everything.”

He tells her she’s welcome in more ways than one, leaving them both breathless and closer than ever before.

..

Things get even better as time moves forward.

Killian gets a raise at his job when tourism suddenly booms in Storybrooke, and Emma persuades him to sell his art at the Spring Festival.

When they have enough money, they find a used yellow VW Bug and Killian buys it while she’s at school in the middle of March.

He starts to get noticed when someone in town offers to make his artwork an online shop and they soon have enough money to go anywhere they want, really.

And the best part is that they’re _happy_. They’re together, and this plan of theirs, this _dream_ , to go and be who they want to be, it’s _working_.

Emma applies for colleges everywhere near a beach, and she’s accepted to nearly every single one.

Every time she gets a letter of acceptance, Killian hoists her into the air and kisses her passionately before he sets her down again, her laughter excited as he takes the letter and reads it aloud.

With graduation just around the corner, Emma puts in her two weeks notice to Granny, who smiles and thanks her for being such a good worker, offering her a graduation gift in the form of a thousand dollars.

When she tells Killian, he almost doesn’t believe her, but then she shows him the check and he laughs, swearing that he’ll kiss Granny the next time he sees her. They celebrate with Oreos and kisses that leave her dizzy.

Her foster parents don’t know anything about her plans, and she could care less about telling them, but when she comes home from work the night before graduation with her cap and gown in her arms, her foster mom stops her with a little confused look on her face.

“What are you going to do, Emma? You haven’t been accepted to any colleges, have you?”

She feels a swelling of pride in her chest as she shakes her head. “Actually, I’m going to college. And I’m moving away from here with my boyfriend right after graduation.”

Her foster mom looks dumbstruck. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Emma shrugs. “Um… I’ll be packing up tonight. Thanks for this, I guess.”

..

She arrives at graduation with Killian on her side. He’s grinning from ear to ear, excited for her and all that she’s accomplished.

“Swan, I hope you know I’m bloody proud of you. This was a hard enough year as it was. But, you’re graduating with honors, love.”

Emma watches him tug at the golden rope dangling from her neck and she rolls her eyes just a little with embarrassment.

“Thanks.”

Killian kisses her forehead. “We should part ways now. Just know I’m the one cheering the loudest for you.”

“You’ll be the _only_ one cheering,” Emma teases. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it. Killian kisses her forehead once more.

“I love you.”

Emma nods. “I love you, too.”

She holds his gaze as she goes and he winks at her so she’ll laugh, and she does, shaking her head a little as she finds her seat.

Thankfully, Storybrooke High’s graduating class is relatively small, and it won’t take long to get through the processional.

When her name is called and she crosses the stage to take her diploma, she hears Killian whistling and cheering. She bites on her lip to keep from laughing too hard, turning to see him standing with Ruby and Granny, who are also shouting at the top of their lungs.

And just like that, it’s over. She did it. She’s finished with Storybrooke and with being a foster kid. She can be who she wants to be without any questions asked of her.

Emma finds Killian after some formalities are taken care of and he lifts her, his arms wrapped tight around her waist as he kisses her.

“Swan, I am _so_ proud of you.”

She laughs. “Thank you.”

After saying her farewells to Ruby and Granny, who each hug her for a minute each, forcing her to promise she’ll write or call sometimes, Emma takes Killian’s hand and they walk out into the early afternoon, heading straight for their Bug.

She gets out of her graduation getup and folds it neatly, tucking it into the backseat with their bags of clothes and dishes. They’ve sold all of Killian’s paintings and everything else they had in the apartment, leaving them with plenty to get started as soon as they get to their new home, wherever that may be.

“We’ll be okay, won’t we?” she asks, turning to him as soon as she starts the car.

Killian smiles, taking her hand. He lifts it to his lips and kisses the back of her hand. “As long as we’re together, I’m certain everything will be just fine.”


End file.
